This kind of thing can never be justified

Ray Gronberg has a story in the Herald Sun this morning that needs to be read.

Apparently Assistant DA Tracey Cline has been on the receiving end of harassing and anonymous phone calls as a result of, perhaps, her involvement in the Duke lacrosse case. The calls are, according to the report, racist in nature.

They're certainly immoral, and i'm going to guess that they're probably illegal. You would think that the DA's office would be able to figure out where they're coming from and prosecute, but that's a different story.

Here's the rub.

Gronberg writes:

At the heart of the matter is material taken from the notes of lacrosse case lead detective Ben Himan, and notes and a deposition from Durham police Sgt. Mark Gottlieb.

They referred to Cline's role in the creation of a non-testimonial order, or NTO, that allowed police to take photographs of and collect DNA evidence from 46 of the 47 members of the Duke lacrosse team.

Cline denied that she had any role in writing the order.

"The record will indicate that David Saacks did it," she said. Saacks is the interim district attorney but was an assistant DA at that time. "I didn't prepare any paperwork on that case. Nothing at all. I've never even seen or laid hands on a non-testimonial order."

She said, "I remember Gottlieb asked me about a non-testimonial order, and I told him I was not available."

But when asked by The Herald-Sun whether she'd asked police to draft the non-testimonial order, Cline responded, "I don't recall."

(emphasis added)
The implication is clear. That Cline's possible involvement in this aspect of the lacrosse case can be used to justify harassing her.

That's just wrong. The heart of the matter is whether or not some individuals are engaging in particularly repulsive behavior. Cline's role in the lacrosse case is irrelevant here. The various lawsuits that are working their way through the court system, and the potential electoral campaign should Cline seek the DA office later this year, are appropriate places to discuss her involvement inthe lacrosse case. The racial (and, i'm willing to bet, sexual) harassment merely points out where many of those who think that the lacrosse case represents The Worst And Only Miscarriage Of Justice In The History Of The World™ are actually coming from. And it's an ugly place.

UPDATE: Boy, do the comments ever confirm that idea.

Continue reading This kind of thing can never be justified

Things i'd be writing about today if i wasn't sick and up to my ears in work

Chris Dodd on Countdown last night.

Ryan McFaddyen sues the City of Durham and Duke University. Yeah, that Ryan McFadyen.

New Durham Magazine generates discussion over "improper usage of a colon." (Context, as i think one of my English professors once said, is everything. Or maybe it was Virginia Woolf. I no longer remember.)

Maybe i'll be recovered enough tonight to express some coherent thoughts.

Meanwhile, feel free to talk amongst yourselves.

Continue reading Things i'd be writing about today if i wasn't sick and up to my ears in work

Blinders

I had a revelation earlier today, from a couple of things i read on Durham blogs. First, what i'll charitably describe as an unintentionally offensive comment on Michael's post on the lacrosse case. Here's the nub:

I fully believe that this could happen in other places. Which is one of the reasons I want to see Durham hit with a financial judgement that it will feel for decades - and that will make mayors, city councimen and police chiefs all over the country sit up and take notice. After all, one of the primary purposes of punitive damages is deterrence.

I agree that many previous miscarriages of justice have slid by with the wrongdoers getting a relative slap on the wrist. I'd like to see that change. I'm sorry Durham has to be first, but only in the sense that we can't go back in time and fix the others, too.

My initial response, which you can read at Michael's place, was pretty angry. (After all, for an enlightened and tolerant guy, i get pissed off pretty easy.) But i reread something at Kevin's place:

it seems that if you can’t see poverty, it really isn’t there. And so many of us do our best to live in isolated pockets at the demographic extremes.

See, it just occurred to me that for people like Ralph Phelan, the Duke lacrosse case is the first and only time they've ever encountered injustice like this. They really do live in a world where this kind of thing just doesn't happen; and if word of something like this does penetrate, then there's obviously a reason why it happened to say, Dwayne Allen Dail.

Which is why, i guess, Ralph Phelan is able to say, without any trace of irony, that he's sorry Durham has to be the first. For him, and i suppose for many of the commenters on this blog who have expressed similar sentiments, the world in which this kind of thing happens to many undeserving people just doesn't exist.

Continue reading Blinders

Good stuff from Kevin at BCR

As usual. Go read it all:

To those seeing Durham through the lens of the lacrosse case alone, it might appear to be your stereotypical post-Drudge, post-Hannity pile on. A one-off flurry of arrows and barbs that will disappear at the next media conflagration.

Except for the fact that Durham is, collectively, used to such rhetoric. Web message boards at the local TV stations already fill up with comments any time a shooting happens in the Bull City. At the least, expect snide comments about the need for a bullet-proof vest in Durham. Followed more typically by comments of the need to get the “thugs” out of Durham, where thug generally seems to be a code-word for young African-American male. (Occasionally, such comments about thugs are followed by jokes about fried chicken, you see.)

The external negativity about Durham did not begin with Duke lacrosse. It won’t end with Duke lacrosse. At its heart, to my mind, is the same source of the rabid complaints about New Orleans after Katrina, or the jibes at other major urban centers: namely, Durham is a diverse, socioeconomically integrated city in an increasingly fragmented United States.

One of the reasons I chose to live in Durham, despite the presence of so many other cities I could have called home in the Triangle, was that I wanted to live in an economically diverse community, a place that looked like America. I mentioned this to a former colleague in my old lefty haunts of Boston last weekend and he looked at me, completely puzzled. The expression seemed to say, why would you want that?

After all, the American dream is to move up the economic ladder, and in a world of suburban and exurban lifestyles, that means moving to new subdivisions surrounded by the comfortable trappings of a mass retail existence. Wake Forest’s boom, linked so closely to Triangle Town Center and I-540, is one example of what is, for many, the desiderata of modern life. I mean, who wants to live where there’s poor people, right?

To abuse the late Douglas Adams for a moment, to many Americans, it seems that if you can’t see poverty, it really isn’t there. And so many of us do our best to live in isolated pockets at the demographic extremes.

Which leads many on the outside to a typical conclusion: if poverty exists, it’s certainly due to dysfunction in whatever place the poverty resides. Be it an inner city, or a mobile home park, or a Native American reservation. If they’d just work a little harder, if they’d just stop having kids, if they’d just put down the bottle, if they’d give up the drugs -- their life would be like mine.

Frankly, a large segment of the U.S. population can’t understand why anyone would choose to live inside Durham. What they may not realize is, many of us who are here wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else.

Continue reading Good stuff from Kevin at BCR

Do i smell a lawsuit coming on?

From an anonymous commenter below, discussing the Amadou Diallo case (about which, the last time i checked, the man was still dead):

Unlike the duke case, it didn't involve a whole community involved in the witch hunt, a corrupt D.A., a corrupt DNA lab, etc.

As far as i can tell, in the November general election last year, Nifong received somewhat less than 50% of the vote in what was essentially a referendum on the Duke lacrosse case. From which it's a fair stretch to say "the whole community" was "involved in the witch hunt." (Which is an interesting metaphor of choice that will perhaps be the topic of a future blog post.) I wonder if that 51% of the community which expressed its disapproval of the Durham DA will appreciate having its reputation tarnished in this fashion, or if it will seek financial compensation? Perhaps i should post a disclaimer that i'm not responsible for the views of my commenters?

=========================

Full disclosure: I voted for Nifong. So sue me. Oh, wait, you already did.

Continue reading Do i smell a lawsuit coming on?

I wonder what Sacco and Vanzetti would say?

Duke lacrosse players:

. . . one of the most chilling episodes of premeditated police, prosecutorial and scientific misconduct in modern American history. . .

I suppose if by American you mean "Durham, North Carolina," and by modern you mean "since 2006," yeah, i guess they might have a point.

Continue reading I wonder what Sacco and Vanzetti would say?

Relative worth

Kudos to Matt Dees at the N&O for his story earlier this week comparing the settlements received by a number of people who've spent upwards of a decade in jail after being prosecuted and convicted of crimes they didn't commit, with the settlements being sought by three Duke lacrosse players wrongly accused of rape.

Kevin and i have both mentioned this, but Matt's got a bigger megaphone.

A little necessary perspective, if you ask me.

Continue reading Relative worth

What needs to be said

Kevin pretty much nails what needs to be said about the leaked details of the settlement offer proposed by attorneys for the three Duke lacrosse players.

The only thing i have to add is that if the $10 million each is seeking were to be used to start a trust fund to compensate other victims of miscarriage of justice, i have no problems with it.

As far as the ombudsman goes, hey, that's a great idea, but any lawyer worth his salt, as Barry Scheck most assuredly is, knows that the measure of Durham's clout in the state legislature is minimal. And that if this is a reform that they really want to happen, they'll need to do more than just ask for Durham to get behind it. Threatening legal action against the state, which as Kevin correctly notes was Mike Nifong's employer, might better get the attention of the folks in Raleigh.

Continue reading What needs to be said

Nifonged

From the Herald-Sun:

Because their pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears elsewhere, defense lawyers have turned to Durham's top judge in a last-ditch effort to free a mentally retarded man held 14 years without trial for allegedly killing a woman in Wadesboro.

Court documents describe the case as a "quintessential example" of a prosecution run unconstitutionally amok, a "perfect storm of injustice."

On Oct. 8, Judge Orlando F. Hudson will hear arguments about whether the defendant -- Floyd Lee Brown -- will continue to be detained at the state's Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh, and whether the homicide charge against him should be dismissed.

It wasn't all that long ago a great hue and cry went up around the land that out-of-control prosecutors needed to be reigned in. Supporters of the three wrongfully accused Duke lacrosse team members all over the internet (and, as i recall, one or two of the lacrosse players themselves) were railing against injustice and vowing to make sure this kind of thing never happened again.

Here's your chance to step up to the plate, folks. It's not like a whole lot of people are talking about this case right now.

Continue reading Nifonged

Let's stop spreading misinformation, shall we?

I'm no fan of Duke University President Dick Brodhead, as regular readers of this blog know.

But the John Locke Foundation's Right Angle blog is going after him today based on something that is just a flat out lie.

First, they approvingly quote from the ever-worthless John Leo:

But here is what Mr. Brodhead did: On hearing the first reports, he abruptly canceled the lacrosse season, suspended the two players named in the case, and fired the lacrosse coach of 16 years, giving him less than a day to get out.

As we've documented several times here, Brodhead did not "abruptly" cancel the lacrosse team's season and fire coach Mike Pressler "On hearing the first reports" of the incident.

The resignation of Coach Pressler and the cancellation of the season came after the release of team player Ryan (41) Mcfadyen's notorious email, in which he discussed inviting strippers to his residence and "killing bitches," and "proceeding to cut their skin off" while "cumming in my Duke issue spandex."

The email was dated March 14. It was made public on April 6. Pressler resigned at the same time that the email became public. Nearly three weeks after the first reports of the incident.

We can split hairs over whether Coach Pressler jumped or was pushed. But it's clear that the University was prepared to stand behind him over the rape allegations until the publication of a particularly vile email from one of his players. That was the straw which broke the camel's back.

This case makes everybody look bad without having to make shit up, so why bother?

Continue reading Let's stop spreading misinformation, shall we?

They write letters (pt. 1)

From a letter to the editor by my friend Tony M. (reprinted with his permission)

. . . Nifong's out of a job and some of us sure would like to know what in blazes was he thinking when he suppressed the DNA lab results.

That said, I want to express my disappointment in the shrill language and ugly intent exhibited by people who hate Durham and have used this incident as their soap box. You outsiders from all over the country are not fooling anybody with your veiled racism towards this city, its law enforcement agencies and its inhabitants.

It was also interesting to see how the privileged classes in this country can pull their wagons together to take care of their own. Don't worry, folks -- you're on top and you have no problem staying there!

That, unfortunately, is the lesson learned from this sad affair.

Continue reading They write letters (pt. 1)

He wants an apology?

So former Duke lacrosse coach Mike Pressler returned to "the scene of the crime" (just kidding. He was actually at the Regulator) last night on his book tour. Fortunately, i have a life and couldn't be there, because reading about it in the N&O was enough to push my blood pressure up 10 points.

On Thursday -- in what has been a week full of news surrounding the Duke lacrosse case -- the coach-turned-author told a crowd of supporters at the Regulator Bookshop that he still awaits one thing: an apology.

"A big part of education is when you're wrong, you admit you're wrong," Pressler said.

Let's recall the chain of events that led to Pressler's dismissal last year, shall we?

It wasn't after 1/3 of his team's players had been arrested over a period of several years for public intoxication. (And as i said over at Joe's place, i've been intoxicated in public plenty of times. I'm sure you have too. But i've never been arrested for it. Do you have any idea what it takes to get arrested for public intoxication?) It wasn't after his team's captain's hosted a party featuring sex workers and underage drinking.

No, Pressler was fired after this email, which had been sent on March 14th, and which he had been aware of for weeks, was made public as part of the police investigation.

Click on the graphic for a larger version.

I've said this for the past 15 months. If you work in corporate America, and you use your company's email system to send out something like this, you will be fired. I don't care how many Bret Easton Ellis fans you work with. No company in America is going to allow the "atmosphere of harassment" that email contributes to to exist
because it virtually guarantees a lawsuit. And a manager who is aware of an employee using the corporate email system to send things like that, and does nothing about it, is also going to be fired, and justifiably so.

Pressler knew about Ryan McFadyen's email for weeks before it became public*. That was the incident that immediately preceded his firing.

Even though i agree that University President Dick Brodhead and Athletic Director Joe Alleva mishandled the entire affair on behalf of the University (see any of my posts from last year on this. I think they waited too long to both fire Pressler and cancel the season. In addition, Brodhead's attempts to portray himself as a "Durham leader" were particularly disingenuous and probably deceitful), there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that failing to discipline one of his players who had written an email like that, on the University email system, was a firing offense.

Coach Pressler's firing needs no apology. An apology from Coach Pressler to the Durham community on behalf of his team's anti-social behavior during his tenure would, however, be welcome.

=================

* - see remarks in the comments for details on this strike-out.

Continue reading He wants an apology?

Aaaaaarrrrggghhhh!

I'm not trying to defend Nifong at all. But when i read shit like this, my blood starts to boil:

Also Monday, Duke University announced it had reached an undisclosed financial settlement with the three former lacrosse players, Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans. Duke suspended them after they were charged, canceled the team's season and forced their coach to resign.

"We welcomed their exoneration and deeply regret the difficult year they and their families have had to endure," Duke said in a statement announcing the settlement.

The players' families racked up millions of dollars of legal bills in their defense, and appear likely to file a lawsuit against Nifong.

The players said in a joint statement they hoped the agreement would "begin to bring the Duke family back together again."

"The events of the last year tore the Duke community apart, and forcibly separated us from the university we love," they said. "We were the victims of a rogue prosecutor concerned only with winning an election."

Let's see, guys. You had a team party where you hired sex workers and provided alcohol to underage teammates. (The latter is definitely a crime in the state of North Carolina.) One of your teammates sent an email out after the "party" which read in part:
'"Tomorrow night, after tonights show, ive decided to have some strippers over," the message read. "However there will be no nudity. i plan on killing bitches as soon as the walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off."' Last year, your University President said, to a Chamber of Commerce meeting:

Earlier Thursday, at the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce's 100th annual meeting, Brodhead got two rounds of booming applause when he told business and industry leaders about the university's stance.

Whether the accusations prove to be true or not, other acts of misbehavior attributed to the lacrosse team were "abhorrent," Brodhead said.

"It's not the kind of behavior we have the habit of condoning," he said.

You trashed the house you lived in and the block you lived on so thoroughly that the University paid $3 million to buy up a dozen houses (well above what they were worth on the market) on the block to resell with the stipulation that they never be rented to students again.

Anyone who pays attention to Durham politics knows that Mike Nifong's re-election was a no-brainer before your stupid party ever took place.

At this point, i think it would be best if you get on with your lives in another part of the country, and just shut the fuck up. You don't deserve to live in our town.

Continue reading Aaaaaarrrrggghhhh!

Nifong announces he's leaving

Looks like Mr. Bacon has gotten his wish.

Not the ending i would have preferred in this case, but after the Attorney General dismissed the charges against the Duke lacrosse players and said what he said, this really should have happened much sooner.

UPDATE: Michael makes a point i tried to make a lot last year, but much more cogently than any of my efforts:

Nifong served honorably and exceptionally as an assistant DA for quite a while, and the good of that service shouldn't be completely obliterated by his severe and unforgivable mistakes leading the department. It bears remembering that one of the reasons so many of us found it hard to believe that the case was going so far off of the rails is because of Nifong's long established reputation for carefulness and thoroughness.

It seemed to me, and i posted this thought not only here but in comments on a number of other folk's blogs throughout the spring and summer of last year, that Nifong had to have something to hang the case on, otherwise he wouldn't even be taking it to the grand jury.

The most difficult aspect of the case for me is that, after trying to argue for the better part of a year that it shouldn't be seen as a lens through which to view the societal faultlines of race, gender, and privilege, what's happened has served to wedge those faults further apart, to the extent that they'll continue to trap people in the future.

Continue reading Nifong announces he's leaving